


Past the White Noise

by ninjashield5



Series: TsukkiYama Week 2019 [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Childhood Friends, Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Pining, Rain, Sleepovers, Trouble Sleeping, the pining is really small, tsukishima calls him tadashi but only once, tsukishima is very subtly in love, white noise, yamaguchi cries a little
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-26 01:49:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20035891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninjashield5/pseuds/ninjashield5
Summary: Yamaguchi has trouble sleeping, but the sound of rain helps.TsukkiYama Week 2019 Day 2:rain| eatery





	Past the White Noise

Yamaguchi shuffles under his covers, and when it goes on for more than a second or two, Tsukishima knows the brunette is twisting and turning in complaint.

“Shut up, Yamaguchi,” Tsukishima deadpans from the bed, earning a groan from the floor.

“I can’t sleep, Tsukki.”

Tsukishima drags his eyelids apart reluctantly. Yamaguchi may not be able to sleep, but Tsukishima is more than capable. He was mere moments away, in fact.

“I can’t help you with that.”

“You mean you don’t have a sleeping potion?” Yamaguchi asks innocently. Tsukishima sighs and shifts so he can lean on his elbow and peer down at Yamaguchi.

Despite the dark and Tsukishima’s lack of glasses — a combination that never bodes well for his ability to see anything — his eyes find Yamaguchi’s easily. He wonders if that’s the result of their many years of sleepovers and talking in the quiet of the dark when they should have been sleeping.

“You know, you _could_ help,” Yamaguchi says finally after Tsukishima’s fixed him with an unimpressed stare for long enough.

Tsukishima shifts so he’s lying flat on his side, arm folded under his head. “You know I don’t like that thing.”

When they started middle school, Yamaguchi’s mom installed a white noise app on her phone and let Yamaguchi use it at night because he started having so many recurring nightmares that even getting to sleep to get to the nightmares was becoming an ordeal. The gentle hum from the device proved helpful for a few months, and when Yamaguchi eventually got a smartphone, he installed the same app on it.

Tsukishima hates the white noise generator. He especially hates Yamaguchi’s preference: rain sounds. They make Tsukishima feel like he needs to go pee.

Tsukishima endured the white noise up until high school. Now, they have an agreement: when they sleep over at Yamaguchi’s house, he’s welcome to listen to white noise as long as it isn’t the rain sounds. But when they’re at Tsukishima’s house, they sleep in silence.

When they first agreed on that, neither of them were sure of how it would go. Yamaguchi had been drifting off to sleep with gentle noises in his ear for years, so to suddenly interrupt that seemed questionable.

They’re not sure why, but fortunately Yamaguchi seems to sleep pretty well at the Tsukishima household. Yamaguchi theorizes that it’s because Tsukishima’s room is a familiar comfort, but Tsukishima dismissed that because Yamaguchi’s own room is even more familiar to the brunette.

“I know,” Yamaguchi laments.

Tsukishima sighs, “You’ll fall asleep eventually.” When Yamaguchi grumbles, he adds in a particularly flat tone, “You can do it. I’m rooting for you.”

That pulls a small laugh from Yamaguchi. “I won’t disappoint.”

“You never do.”

Tsukishima shuffles on the bed until he’s back at the middle of the mattress. Once he stills, silence falls over the room again, and drowsiness returns to Tsukishima before dragging him off to sleep.

—

When he wakes back up, the clock on his nightstand glares _1:47 AM_ at him. It’s no longer silent, and Tsukishima immediately wishes he was hearing Yamaguchi’s white noise generator.

He grabs at his bedside table, groping for his glasses as he swings his legs off the bed. By the time he sinks onto Yamaguchi’s futon, Tsukishima’s glasses are back on his face.

Yamaguchi’s curled into himself, grip too tight on the pillow that should be beneath his head but is clasped in his arms instead. His eyes are squeezed closed, but tears leak from them like they’re a faucet whose knobs haven’t been twisted all the way shut. His breath shudders and he hiccups into the pillow.

Tsukishima tugs at Yamaguchi’s shoulder with a desperate need to wake him up.

He hates seeing Yamaguchi like this.

When Yamaguchi does wake up, he thrashes, throwing an arm back at Tsukishima and whacking him in the center of his chest like he’s doing target practice. Unperturbed, Tsukishima wraps gentle fingers around Yamaguchi’s wrist and pulls the offending arm from his chest.

“Yamaguchi,” Tsukishima says as the brunette blinks past still-flowing tears. “Tadashi,” Tsukishima adds, more insistently, “I’m here. You’re okay. It’s okay. You’re all right.” He wishes he had more, better words for Yamaguchi.

Yamaguchi doesn’t say anything as he sits up and tucks himself into Tsukishima, who releases Yamaguchi’s wrist and drapes his arms around the brunette.

“Nightmare?” Tsukishima mumbles even though he knows the answer.

Yamaguchi nods into his shoulder mutely.

“I should have let you turn on the white noise generator,” Tsukishima says. “This is my fault, I should’ve realized—”

“’S not your fault,” Yamaguchi mumbles. “Unless you really do have potions and slipped a faulty one in my drink earlier.”

Tsukishima presses his cheek to Yamaguchi’s head and ignores the hair tickling his face. He’s not sure if he should laugh. Yamaguchi isn’t.

After a few more minutes, Yamaguchi’s quick breathing slows to something gentle and rhythmic. He extracts himself from Tsukishima’s embrace and meets the blond’s eyes.

“I think I’m okay now,” Yamaguchi whispers.

Tsukishima examines him for any signs that he isn’t. The statement comes out clean.

“You should play your white noise,” Tsukishima says.

“You don’t like it.”

He shrugs. “I dislike you crying on the floor more than I dislike the sound of a distant autumn breeze.” That’s always Yamaguchi’s default when he’s with Tsukishima. That, or wind chimes. But if he goes with the chimes, he has to turn the volume down.

Yamaguchi snorts and reaches for his phone on Tsukishima’s nightstand. “Well, I’m glad to hear I’m in good standing.”

Tsukishima’s glad to see a smile when Yamaguchi’s phone bathes his face in pale blue. It’s a small, tired smile, but it’s a smile.

He reaches a finger over once he sees the noise generator come up. Before Yamaguchi can select the windy sound, Tsukishima clicks on the round blue button that reads _Rain Drops_.

As the sound of gently falling water floods the room, Yamaguchi’s flick up to Tsukishima’s in one quick tilt of his head.

Tsukishima doesn’t say anything. He knows he can’t let his distaste for the patterned sound of rain prevent Yamaguchi from getting a restful sleep. Yamaguchi searches his eyes until his small smile grows and lights up the dark room.

“Thanks,” Yamaguchi exhales.

Tsukishima nods and awkwardly pats Yamaguchi’s shoulder, eliciting a laugh from the brunette, whose mood managed to raise considerably in a matter of minutes.

Yamaguchi puts the phone back on the bedside table, and Tsukishima stands. “I’ll be right back,” he says.

“Do you have to go to the potty?” Yamaguchi asks, teasingly.

“Yes, the restroom,” Tsukishima replies over the sound of raindrops.

As soon as Tsukishima returns, Yamaguchi trades places with him, going to wash his face. “I don’t want to puff up too badly,” he says, tone light but face vaguely grim. Tsukishima suspects it’s already too late, and that in the morning — the real, time to wake up, morning — Yamaguchi’s eyelids will be like small pillows.

They eventually settle in, and Tsukishima returns his glasses to the nightstand.

“Rain isn’t even that loud when it’s right outside my window,” he says quietly, eyes on the ceiling.

“I’m sure you just don’t listen,” Yamaguchi murmurs. Tsukishima can hear the drowsiness settling into his voice. “You’re always wearing your headphones, after all.”

“Not always,” Tsukishima says. After he hears Yamaguchi start to snore, softly, quietly, he says to the darkened room, “Not with you.”

—

The next morning, Yamaguchi is as good as new with the exception of his slightly puffy eyes. “Should’ve iced them while I could,” he says wistfully.

The faint weariness in Yamaguchi’s face is barely visible, though.

“You know, it’s funny. I can’t even remember what I dreamt last night,” Yamaguchi says as he and Tsukishima throw breakfast together. Yamaguchi’s watching over Tsukishima’s toaster use to make sure he doesn’t burn the house down.

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Nah,” Yamaguchi says, “Just kind of weird. That something I can’t even remember now got me so worked up.”

“It’s not weird,” Tsukishima says. His toast pops out of the toaster, only a little burnt.

Yamaguchi just shrugs and spreads butter on his already ready slice of toast.

—

The next weekend, Yamaguchi sleeps over at Tsukishima’s house again. When he plugs his phone in to charge for the night, Tsukishima levels him with an expectant look, and Yamaguchi grins.

He taps a few times, and rain fills the room. Tsukishima can deal with it.

As they sleep, the soft pitter-patter washes away the nightmares before they can even arrive.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading; I hope you enjoyed it!  
You can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/ninjashield5).


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